2^8 Scott on the Bird Rookeries of Southern Florida. [October 



eries of Herons and kindred birds in the little harbor where 

 we were now anchored, but they had been, as he termed it, 

 "broken up' by the efforts of various plume hunters, and that 

 now it was almost impossible to find any Herons either breeding 

 or roosting in the vicinity. He very kindly described an enor- 

 mous rookery on the Manatee shore of Tampa Ba} r , at a point 

 known as Bullfrog River, where he assured me thousands of 

 birds had bred a few seasons before, and I determined to find the 

 point from data and a rough map that he made for me of the 

 region in question. The birds of this pass were about the same 

 as I have already spoken of at Little Gasparilla, except that 

 Knots did not seem so plenty, and Cabot's Tern was much more 

 abundant. Many of these Terns (S. sandvicensis acuflavida) 

 were observed in what seemed to be winter or immature plu- 

 mage, and only now and then was an adult bird with a clear 

 black cap observed. There may have been a hundred of this 

 species fishing along the beaches and roosting in flocks on the 

 sand points on either side of the pass. We did not notice any 

 Herons, even at evening, when they are generally to be seen 

 going to roost, though the country back of us seemed particularly 

 adapted for breeding and roosting grounds. 



Friday, May 2S. It rained all this morning, but in the after- 

 noon it was clear enough to go out on the beaches. Found the 

 Cabot's Tern rather wild, but took nine in the course of the after- 

 noon. Most of these are not in full plumage, but two of them 

 are adult with very black caps and the plumage underneath of a 

 most delicate blush-pink color, very like that seen on the feathers 

 of the breast of the Roseate Tern, and occasionally in a high 

 plumaged Laughing Gull. Here, too, were Forster's Terns in 

 numbers, and Sterna maxima. These latter were about to 

 breed, a female taken having eggs with shells almost formed. 

 Some of the Cabot's Terns were moulting. Some of the Least 

 Terns at this point had nests and others had not moulted out of 

 the winter or immature plumage; and of the many S. hirundo 

 seen and taken here, very few were in full plumage, most of them 

 being moulting. All of the Forster's Terns were in the '•havell? 

 plumage, and did not show any signs of moulting. From these 

 data it is not improbable that many of the Terns, especially S. 

 hirundo and S. forsteri^ do not breed till after they are more 

 than a year old ; and I am inclined to think that this is also the 



